New Orleans police officer killed while transporting suspect

Officer Daryle Holloway “put up a fight” trying to keep the suspect in the vehicle, the police chief said.

Officer Daryle Holloway “put up a fight” trying to keep the suspect in the vehicle, the police chief said.

Photo: /Associated Press

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A manhunt is on for Travis Boys, who police said had been arrested on an aggravated assault charge.

A manhunt is on for Travis Boys, who police said had been arrested on an aggravated assault charge.

Photo: /Associated Press

New Orleans police officer killed while transporting suspect

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NEW ORLEANS — A handcuffed prisoner in a moving police cruiser managed to grab a gun, fatally shoot the officer at the wheel and escape from the vehicle, which careened into a utility pole at a busy intersection, police said Saturday.

Officer Daryle Holloway, 45, died at a hospital, Police Chief Michael Harrison said. Meanwhile, an intense manhunt was on for Travis Boys, 33, the suspect who had been arrested on an aggravated assault charge and was being taken to jail when he escaped.

The New Orleans Crimestoppers organization announced a $10,000 reward for information leading to Boys’ arrest.

Rifle-toting police in bullet-proof vests, some with trained canines, searched whole blocks of one neighborhood about a mile from the city’s French Quarter on Saturday afternoon. Residents clustered on street corners to watch as officers checked backyards and squinted under modest homes elevated on flood-protection piers.

“He will be caught and he will be brought to justice for the murder of Officer Holloway and for this assault on our entire community,” Harrison said in a Police Department statement.

The shooting happened Saturday morning as Boys was handcuffed in the back seat of the vehicle. Boys managed to get his hands from behind his back to the front and obtain a weapon as well, Harrison told reporters at the scene in a video interview posted on the department’s Facebook page.

Boys got to the front seat through an opening in the cage that separates the front and back seats and shot Holloway, Harrison said.

“Officer Holloway put up a fight to try to get the subject to not exit the vehicle but succumbed to his injuries,” Harrison said.

Department spokesman Tyler Gamble said police were trying to determine what weapon Boys used and how he obtained it, but do not believe Boys used the officer’s gun.